Coulter quoted Donna Brazile out of context; mocked her as "liberals' idea of a 'competent' black woman"

Just last month, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter labeled Democrats as "racist" for questioning the credentials of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In her December 2 nationally syndicated column, titled "It's Dr. Rice, Not Dr. Dre," Coulter claimed that the "closest black woman to most of the liberals accusing Rice of being incompetent is the maid they periodically accuse of stealing from the liquor cabinet." Coulter then quoted former Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign manager Donna Brazile out of context in an attempt to support her claim that "[i]t's extremely valuable for Democrats to be able to campaign in black neighborhoods while talking about the 'white boys' running the Republican Party." Coulter also described Brazile, in the context of Gore's failed presidential bid, as "liberals' idea of a 'competent' black woman."

Coulter wrote that when Brazile was running the Gore campaign, she said "she was not going to 'let the white boys win in this election.'" As The Washington Post reported on November 16, 1999, Brazile did say that she would not let the "white boys" win. But Brazile, the first black woman to serve as campaign manager for a major-party presidential campaign, made clear that she was speaking about the "white-boy attitude" toward black women in politics. She did not attribute this attitude to Republicans or any other political group.

The Post article provided the context for Brazile's quote that Coulter's column did not:

She [Brazile] is in that perilous and burdensome position of being a "first," and she both fights the symbolism and embraces the position. The last reason Gore chose her, she says, was her race and gender. But the reality is that in this world, the only time race and gender don't matter is . . . never.

"A black female in America is the most invisible object in the world," Brazile says. She will not let the "white boys" win. And that's not a description of "gender or race, it's an attitude. A white-boy attitude is 'I must exclude, denigrate and leave behind,'" Brazile says. "They don't see it or think about it. It's a culture." It is the sense of utter entitlement. And that she will not have.

Coulter, however, wrote the following in her December 2 column:

It's extremely valuable for Democrats to be able to campaign in black neighborhoods while talking about the "white boys" running the Republican Party. When she was managing Al Gore's 2000 campaign, Donna Brazile said she was not going to "let the white boys win in this election." (If I had a nickel for every time I've confused Al Gore, [Senator] Joe Lieberman, [Democratic National Committee Chairman] Terry McAuliffe, [CNN Crossfire co-hosts] Paul Begala and James Carville for the Jackson Five ...)

Continuing her false accusation of Democrats, Coulter wrote:

The closest black woman to most of the liberals accusing Rice of being incompetent is the maid they periodically accuse of stealing from the liquor cabinet.

Coulter ended her column with:

Sure enough, Brazile was instrumental in not letting a couple of white boys - named Al and Joe - win the election. I guess that's liberals' idea of a "competent" black woman.

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